Construction started at the end of November and is set to be complete in October 2012, with operations scheduled to begin two months later. The hangar will be used for maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) of Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft.

The new facility is expected to generate about 300 jobs. SIAEP currently has a hangar at the airport for maintenance of Airbus A320 family single-aisle aircraft.

Plans are afoot to build a third hangar later on, to tap the growing MRO market. The maintenance hangars at Clark will augment SIAEC’s extensive facilities at Changi Airport, Singapore, providing the company with increased capacity and a competitive cost structure to help capture a larger share of international third-party MRO work that is being placed in Asia because of lower local costs.

SIAEP’s aim is to create an MRO Centre of Excellence in the Philippines, which will eventually create up to 1,100 new high-value added jobs in Clark.

The joint venture is the second of its kind between the two partners. The first, Aviation Partnership Philippines (APPC), a line-maintenance operation, was set up in April 2005, with SIAEC holding a 51 percent stake and Cebu Pacific 49 percent.

APPC provides services at 16 airports across the Philippines.

Briefs

LUFTHANSA TECHNIK is to provide Total Component Support (TCS) services covering a selected number of components for Air New Zealand, starting from mid-January. The contract is for components used on the New Zealand national carrier’s Boeing 777-200 and 777-300 aircraft, and marks the first time that Air New Zealand has used Lufthansa Technik’s services. “It is an exciting time for Air New Zealand with our new Boeing 777-300 aircraft entering service this month, and we are pleased to have Lufthansa Technik as one of our key support partners,” says Vanessa Stoddart, the airline’s group general manager for technical operations. “We ... will be working towards a long-term support partnership with [Air New Zealand],” adds Robin Johansson, Lufthansa Technik’s sales director for South-East Asia and Australia/Pacific.